SANTA CLARA — The Salinas volleyball team rallied after losing the first two games to Menlo-Atherton in the CCS Division I semifinals on Wednesday, but the Cowboys fell short and lost 25-9, 25-19, 20-25, 21-25, 15-8.

The Cowboys struggled to get into gear until halfway through the second game.

"It was a matter of settling down for them," Salinas coach Andy Mandon said. "Our ball control was just horrible in the first game. So they settled down and got into more of a rhythm and I tried to motivate them as best I can and then they started to play the way they normally play. But I think toward the end of the game, we still weren't in system and we didn't have the kind of flow that we've had over the past month."

Salinas (23-9, 12-0 Monterey Bay League Gabilan Division) looked like the team that went 12-0 in league play and earned the No. 2 seed in the CCS Division I playoffs during the middle of the match.

The Cowboys lost the second game, but seemed to regain their form and went on to win Game 3 and Game 4.

Salinas was tied 7-7 in Game 5, but No. 3 seed Menlo-Atherton took control at the end.

"Our passing was probably the worst it has been in a long time," Mandon said. "And when we were winning, their ball control went down a little bit and they weren't able to get the sets that they wanted to. So it's kind of a tradeoff."

Senior outside hitter Lauren Meyenberg, the Monterey Bay League's Gabilan Division Player of the Year, was one of many Salinas players who teared up after the loss ended the Cowboys' season.

"I'm just pretty disappointed that we couldn't rise up to this challenge as a team," she said. "We prepared as best we could, but it just wasn't there tonight."

Meyenberg was a freshman on the 2009 CCS Division I champion Cowboys team that became the fifth Monterey County school to play for a state team title after beating Menlo-Atherton in the CCS final.

"I really expected us to go further," she said. "It's just kind of hard, knowing how that feels (to win a CCS title) to ending so soon this season."

Meyenberg and junior Maddy Mandon led the Cowboys with 15 kills. Erin Reineking had 40 assists and Courtney Bramers had 28 digs for Salinas.

Sophomore middle blocker Alexis Froistad said she wanted to win the match for Meyenberg and the other seniors that finished up their time with the Cowboys late Wednesday.

"I'm mainly frustrated that we lost because I wanted it for them," she said. "I have two more years, but they don't so I really wanted to take it further for them."

Froistad said it was a good experience for her to play in the CCS playoffs.

"I think that our first game (against Monta Vista) was a fluke to be easy and this is more of a reality check as to what CCS is like," she said. "But next year, we'll definitely come out with a strong team and we'll be ready and we'll be expecting exactly this is every single match we play."

The Cowboys beat the Bears earlier in the season, but Menlo-Atherton was playing shorthanded at that point of the season.

"They basically had one hitter the first time we played them and then coming into this game they had two or three more hitters that they activated for this game, who were injured earlier," Andy Mandon said.